Third installment of 100-year retrospective opens at Provincetown's art association

Thursday

May 8, 2014 at 7:00 AM

The newest phase of the Provincetown Art Association & Museum's centennial timeline shows, now on display, extends from 1966 through1989. This was a formative period of organizational challenges and aesthetic innovation at the Art Association that mirrored the externals of war, political upheavals and social change that beset the world back then.

Deborah Minsky

The newest phase of the Provincetown Art Association & Museum’s centennial timeline shows, now on display, extends from 1966 through1989. This was a formative period of organizational challenges and aesthetic innovation at the Art Association that mirrored the externals of war, political upheavals and social change that beset the world back then.

For this third of the four-part series of shows leading up to the Art Association’s rapidly approaching official 100th anniversary in August, Executive Director Christine McCarthy carefully selected only 18 artworks after much winnowing down from the multitude of paintings, drawings, constructions and multi-media pieces available in the permanent collection. To round out these exemplars, she included pertinent historical photos and documents on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art as well as some rarely if ever seen memorabilia from the Art Association’s own files.

The resulting show is simple, stark and, at first glance, a bit troubling for what was not included given this busy period of work by so many Art Association members during this period.

Until McCarthy clarified her purpose during a recent gallery walk-through, it was also rather difficult to discern any continuity between the chosen work beyond the timeframe itself. However, the logic of it all becomes crystal clear as one moves through the show, piece by piece.

McCarthy says she began the installation with an idea of the artists she wished to feature. Determined to have women artists well represented, she also “wanted to include artists who were major participants in the changes happening at PAAM during that time period — especially the 1970 addition of “and Museum” to the institution’s title, along with all that entailed, she says.

“Virtually every single artist represented was either on an exhibition jury, a board member or an officer of that board,” she adds.

Mindful of maintaining some balance between contemporary and deceased artists, she points out some highlights of her selection process. “It was really fun to see what’s changed in terms of artistic styles and approaches and what has come back,” she says.

The front exhibition space, immediately to the right of the PAAM reception desk, features small-scale works for up-close viewing. Each piece an example of the broad diversity of that era, all have been placed in sequential order. Thus, Paul Bowen’s diminutive, abstract black-and-white print of Provincetown draggers is right above Arthur Cohen’s more representational oil, “The Plymouth Belle.” One moves from a stunning geometrical lithograph by Jack Tworkov, “T.L. #2,” to Blair Resika’s vintage black-and-white photograph of her husband Paul painting pond-side. This beautiful glimpse of “Paradise” precedes Michael Mazur’s 1968 mixed-media depiction, “Model Posing for Artist.”

McCarthy is so imbued with Art Association lore that she speaks in a stream of staccato bursts as she moves from painting to painting. “Tworkov worked in all black-and-white for his new mathematical, geometric grids until he felt he had a handle on it. Then he started adding color,” she begins, moving around the room.

Mervin Jules’ atypical “Self Portrait,” with its penetrating stare, so captivated her, she says, that she told herself, “I have to put that one in!” Jules’ glaring eyes seem to follow people into every corner of the gallery. Calling the late Alvin Ross a “truly phenomenal painter,” McCarthy compares this oil painting, with its evocative elongated figures, to works by Modigliani. Pointing to a particular favorite, a small oil by Helen Miranda Wilson entitled “Blond Potato” (1977), McCarthy underscores how carefully Wilson chose each piece for this timeline.

Anne Lord’s historically significant, completely spontaneous collage, “Shredded Minutes, 1986-’87,” might possibly become the biggest draw and sentimental favorite of the show for its artful, colorfully literal use of scrapped Art Association minutes collected during Lord’s tenure as president of the board. Characterized by Lord’s impeccable draftsmanship and perceptiveness to the growing needs of the organization, it is balanced by her whimsical design and sense of humor.

Along with these works of art, the photos, assorted exhibition catalogs, notes and memorabilia ground viewers in a sense of the institution’s history. Be sure to look closely at a 1966 black-and-white photograph from the Art Association’s archives of this period’s board of trustees and officers (missing only the artists Mischa Richter and Salvatore Del Deo) accompanied by former director Frederick Tasch. Of these leaders, only Del Deo is still with us, an active artist and member of the Provincetown community.

This show, the third of the four-part series that covers the institution’s history from 1914 to 2014, runs concurrently with its larger companion show, “Women Pioneers.” Two additional shows, “Moderns vs. Regulars” and “The Tradition of the Provincetown Print,” open Friday, May 23, when all four will be celebrated with a reception at 8 p.m.